


Para's Prompts and Premonitions

by paraparadigm



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Character studies, Multi, Tumblr Prompts, free-form, prompts, rare pairs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:15:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24165730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paraparadigm/pseuds/paraparadigm
Summary: Prompt fills, exchanges, drabbles, character studies, and other writerly throat-clearings. A grab bag of random miscellanea.
Relationships: various
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. Leliana/Josie

**Tumblr Prompt Fill for DA Lovers 2020, Leliana/Josephine**

They adjourned to a nearby balcony, away from prying ears — a familiar habit, from  younger, more ebullient times . Leliana leaned on the balustrade, her eyes on the stars above. Solium glittered, a bright cross in an ocean of velvety darkness. The night sky over Halamshiral had always seemed garishly beautiful — impossible to describe if you never walked the city’s narrow streets, if you never revelled in its performative magnificence, slurped from the broken bones of past and present ignonimities. It left her with an aftertaste of irresolvable ambivalence: for all of its seductive flavors, the city coated her tongue with a lingering bitterness. The palace halls were rife with heady machinations, as fine and as lethal as a spidersilk garotte, satin and smoke and throaty laughter wrapped over a silverite blade. There was a time when she would have enjoyed  _ Le Jeu _ for what it was — a way to sublimate a boredom so profound it wormed itself into your bones and set up residence.

Leliana brought the wineglass to her lips. Halamshiral’s wines tasted like the city: opulent sweetness with a bitter edge. 

“I realize the time to question the Inquisitor’s decision has passed, but...” At her side, Josephine’s voice was quiet and reflective. “I wish he would have chosen otherwise.”

Leliana kept her eyes trained on the scatter of stars. Once a bard, then a humble Chantry sister, and now some monstrous amalgamation of faltering faith and pragmatism — what manner of clarity could she offer? Her dearest companion, the one who had stood by her through howling losses and unarticulated regrets, now sought her counsel. And all she could muster was one of her practiced smiles. 

She wiped it off her face like one wipes off cobwebs in the dark. “Josie…” They had never traded in empty reassurances. And yet, here she was, her mouth forming a platitude. She swallowed it back, and offered honesty — or whatever passed for it these days. “We cannot hope to predict the  _ long durée _ . With the correct advisors, de Chalons might yet be tempered away from his more... vapid ambitions.” 

Josephine’s silks rustled with her shrug. “I hope you are correct, though it will require a great deal of finesse.” And then, she added, with a rueful chuckle, “and much work, which our dearest Inquisitor will undoubtedly not notice.”

Leliana felt a return smile tugging at her lips. “Perhaps  _ that _ is for the best.” Josephine’s mirth had always managed to infect her, even in the bleakest of times, until nothing remained but smothered giggles in the dark. “Why not allow ourselves to celebrate the small victories, then, while we can?”

Josephine cocked her head to the side. “What do you have in mind?”

“Have you danced yet?”

“Only twice. I fear my feet will never recover from Duke Germain’s interpretation of the courante.” 

Leliana rested her glass on the balustrade. She had walked these past few months in measured, calculated strides, and yet she found herself sweeping into a formal bow on pure impulse. “One more dance, before the night is over? I promise your feet won’t suffer overly much — I still recall at least  _ some  _ of the steps.”

Josephine’s tinkling laughter eased something Leliana couldn’t quite name. 

“And supply the palace with fresh gossip?”

Leliana smiled. “Consider it our good deed for the day.” 

It was the night’s smallest, dearest victory — the warmth of the ambassador’s hand in hers, as familiar as her own heartbeat.


	2. Letters to the Carta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall/Cadash prompt fill, from [Awkward Smut Prompts](https://fandomn00blr.tumblr.com/post/636058582671032320/awkward-sex-tropes) # 30, "Trying not to laugh"
> 
> In which Malika Cadash is trying to write an important letter, and Blackwall's not being too helpful.
> 
> CW: Explicit

“Keep still, big guy, you’re making me smudge the ink.”

In all fairness he was _trying_ to comply. Gave it his Warden best, as it were—which wasn’t saying much, all things being equal. Laughter built up in his chest, a fizzy pressure he had no idea how to release without tripping the edge of the Inquisitor’s already irascible temper. It didn’t help that she was sprawled on the bed, naked as the day she was born, quill in hand, inkpot precariously balanced on the pillow, scribbling on a piece of parchment unfolded on his chest like he was some Maker-forsaken bureau, never mind that if there was a more ill-suited surface for her correspondence, he’d be hard-pressed to find one. Her bare breasts brushed his arm—and it took all his will, or what was left of it, not to help himself to a handful, let alone a good long ogle. 

He ordered his eyes to the ceiling, utterly failed, and focused on her face instead. It didn’t help. She was frowning at whatever she had scrawled, and now the feathered tip of the quill was traveling precariously over her lower lip, back and forth, and _fuck_ but this was torture. Her free hand occasionally wandered down his stomach, tangling in the hair there, and now it was back at it, an absentminded exploration that ended up in his c—

“Give me a synonym for cocksuckers, will you? I used that one last time.”

Thom groaned and tried to keep his hips still. “I thought you were writing to that Orlesian bloke, what’s his name?” 

Her hand reached the waistband of his breeches and started tugging at the lacing there before his shuddering sigh disturbed the letter. She grumbled something indistinct, the hand retreated, and Thom wondered abstractedly whether he might, finally, just lose whatever shred of sanity he’d managed to retain—and be done with it.

“Josie’s handling it. This one’s for the Carta. The blighters will want to see if I’ve gone soft with all the rich… what do the fancy ponces in Val Royeaux call it?” She wrinkled her nose. “ _Accoutrements_. No, that’s not it. Wait. _Appurtenances_.” She purred it. Of course, she purred it. Her eyes flashed to his and went wicked with it. 

Thom let his head drop to the pillow and stared at the ceiling. “Fuck,” he commented.

“In a bit. Anyway, cocksuckers, but punchier.”

He wasn’t sure what was worse, the arousal or the urge to laugh, and it tugged him in opposite directions until he felt like his lungs and his cock were having a stand-off. “Shitbags?” he tried weakly. “Give me a moment.”

“Hurry up, I want to be done with this so I can fuck you.”

“You are _not_ helping my eloquence.”

She pursed her lips. “You can save your eloquence for when you’re between my legs. Right now, I need something proper crass, like.”

“Because what I do to you isn’t proper crass?” He felt vaguely vindicated when her neck and chest flushed pink, the rosy tint slowly creeping into her cheeks, thunderous scowl notwithstanding.

“How about… arse-dragging dick-knuckles?” he offered. “No idea what it means, but-”

The quill scratched against the parchment. He felt her warm breath on his skin as she blew on the ink to dry it.

“How’s this?” She cleared her throat. “‘ _If you arse-dragging dick-knuckles think you can peddle tainted lyrium under the Inquisition’s nose like we wouldn’t notice,_ ’—you know, a gal can get real used to this Royal We, now that I think about it—’ _you can take your contract, and shove it, until it comes out the other end to tickle your nostrils.’_ ” She nodded. “ _Sincerely yours…”_

And that was when the laughter he’d been trying to hold won, fair and square.


End file.
